Area of the Art
[AREA OF ART]
Description of the Background
Currently there is no removable, adjustable and expandable clip that binds a stack of papers together at their corners. There is no clip device that has the utility of a paper staple but the non-damaging characteristics, adjustability and disposability of a paper clip. Currently available paper clips also have the problem of allowing for vertical and horizontal movement of the papers held together.
Presently available devices that hold together a stack of papers are staples, paper clips or binder clips. However, all of these devices suffer from inherent design flaws that reduce their usefulness. Current paper clips are not designed to hold a stack of papers together by its corner edges. Such clips are also not designed to expand to accommodate a variable size stack of papers. When a person wants to flip through a stack of papers bound by a paper clip it is difficult and often results in the paper clip slipping and becoming unfastened from its original position. When a large stack of paper requires binding, a traditional paper clip will become distorted in shape due to the small number of sheets it can hold together. An ordinary paper clip also cannot limit the lateral and horizontal movement of the papers it holds together so that the bound sheets are liable to slippage in a direction parallel to the plane of the sheets.
These problems are only partially addressed by metal binder clips. The problem with metal binder clips is that they are not disposable; they are relatively expensive and based on the number of paper sheets that need to be held together, many different sizes of metal binder clips must be bought. Binder clips can also cause creasing of the bound sheets and can obstruct the view of the reader due to their significant size. Also, the binder clips are sufficiently large to impede stacking multiple bound documents. While binder clips can be placed at the corner edge of a paper stack, they are not designed for such placement and often slip off when so placed. While staple readily fasten paper stacks by their corners, staples are not easily removable and must be used in conjunction with a cumbersome stapling device. If a person would like to remove a paper from a stapled stack, then the staple must first be removed leaving marks and holes in the paper—not to mention in the user's finger from trying to remove the staple. Additionally, staples often cause ripping of the fastened papers.